But only fools, and they of vast estate, The extremity of modes will imitate, The dangling knee-fringe and the bib-cravat. While the fops were thus equipped, the ladies wore vizard-masks, and upon the appearance of one of these in the pit-- Straight every man who thinks himself a wit, Perks up, and managing his comb with grace, With his white wig sets off his nut-brown face. For it was the fashion of the gentlemen to toy with their soaring, large-curled periwigs, smoothing them with a comb. Between the fops and the ladies goodwill did not always prevail. The former were, no doubt, addicted to gross impertinence in their conversation. Fop Corner now is free from civil war, White wig and vizard-mask no longer jar, France and the fleet have swept the town so clear. So Dryden "prologuised" in 1672, attributing the absence of "all our braves and all our wits" to the war which England, in conjunction with France, had undertaken against the Dutch. Queen Anne, in 1704, expressly ordered that "no woman should be allowed, or presume to wear, a vizard-mask in either of the theatres." At the same time it was commanded that no person, of what quality soever, should presume to go behind the scenes, or come upon the stage, either before or during the acting of any play; and that no person should come into either house without paying the price established for their respective places. And the disobedient were publicly warned that they would be proceeded against, as "contemners of our royal authority and disturbers of the public peace."